http://www.channel4.com/explore/this-is-england-86/
For anyone who sniffs that television is a dumb or trivial medium, Shane Meadows has provided the perfect riposte: This Is England '86 (Channel 4), the director’s four-part follow-up to his acclaimed 2006 film This Is England. Its second episode aired last night and it is developing into a compelling TV drama which mixes light-hearted humour with a real depth of feeling.
The original film told the story of Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), a fatherless 12 year-old who fell in with a group of apolitical teenage skinheads in 1983. Their happy-go-lucky world collapsed when Combo, an older gang member, returned from jail, bringing racist violence with him. Set three years on, the TV series picked up last week as if the characters had been growing up in the background, with most of the original cast reprising their roles.
Whereas the film focused on the single, dark narrative of Shaun’s experience, the series allows Meadows to range more widely. So while Shaun – who fails his CSEs and gets a short-lived job renting out VHS videos (“These are the future!”) – is still a key character, the first two episodes told the story of Lol (Vicky McClure) and Woody (Joe Gilgun). A likeable couple, they perfectly captured that twentysomething teetering between rebellion and respectability.
Their alternative wedding – the bride wore Doc Martens – flopped when Woody couldn’t say his vows; by the end of episode two Lol’s troubled past was prising them apart. One of the most powerful scenes of the series so far was when she confronted her abusive father, whom her mother had welcomed back under the pretext that he had “changed”. “Changed how?” she asked. “Changed his haircut? Changed his socks?”
As ever with Meadows, there is a deft – and sometimes unsettling – balance of the tragic and the comic. The first two episodes have already provided many laugh-out-loud moments. “Mummy will be with you in one minute. I’ll bring you some milk and biscuits,” simpered a woman caught in flagrante, looking anything but maternal, by her young son. Also possessing an amusing lack of self-awareness was a nasty little oik who made Shaun knock on a girl’s door and insult her so that he could rush to her defence – if Shaun refused, he would beat him up. “She thinks I’m a bully,” he justified himself. “This will show her I’m sensitive.”
The shift to the small screen has not compromised Meadows’s artistic touch. He is the master of that creative writing mantra, “show, don’t tell”, lacing this series with images which communicate far more than many a laboured bit of dialogue. A “dole not coal” pin badge nodded to the context; the sight of Lol
in the shower, water cascading from her cropped hair to the nape of her neck, suggested the vulnerability beneath her toughness. There is, however, the occasional overlap in the imagery which might start to grate as the series wears on. In episode one, we saw the crazy young things racing wheelchairs down a hospital corridor; in episode two they hijacked two golf buggies for yet more mobilised hi-jinks.
Still, with Combo set to return, the drama is likely to take a turn for the darker. This Is England was a provocative title for the film, suggesting that national identity was tied up with lost innocence and bigotry. In the follow-up, the same gang again looks as though it will be torn apart, but this time by infidelity rather than racist hatred. If this suggests a gloomy take on the national psyche, there is much more going on here: Meadows captures a certain camaraderie, coarseness, irony and warmth that are distinctly English, and make for distinctly good television.
By Ceri Radford
Their alternative wedding – the bride wore Doc Martens – flopped when Woody couldn’t say his vows; by the end of episode two Lol’s troubled past was prising them apart. One of the most powerful scenes of the series so far was when she confronted her abusive father, whom her mother had welcomed back under the pretext that he had “changed”. “Changed how?” she asked. “Changed his haircut? Changed his socks?”
As ever with Meadows, there is a deft – and sometimes unsettling – balance of the tragic and the comic. The first two episodes have already provided many laugh-out-loud moments. “Mummy will be with you in one minute. I’ll bring you some milk and biscuits,” simpered a woman caught in flagrante, looking anything but maternal, by her young son. Also possessing an amusing lack of self-awareness was a nasty little oik who made Shaun knock on a girl’s door and insult her so that he could rush to her defence – if Shaun refused, he would beat him up. “She thinks I’m a bully,” he justified himself. “This will show her I’m sensitive.”
The shift to the small screen has not compromised Meadows’s artistic touch. He is the master of that creative writing mantra, “show, don’t tell”, lacing this series with images which communicate far more than many a laboured bit of dialogue. A “dole not coal” pin badge nodded to the context; the sight of Lol
in the shower, water cascading from her cropped hair to the nape of her neck, suggested the vulnerability beneath her toughness. There is, however, the occasional overlap in the imagery which might start to grate as the series wears on. In episode one, we saw the crazy young things racing wheelchairs down a hospital corridor; in episode two they hijacked two golf buggies for yet more mobilised hi-jinks.
Still, with Combo set to return, the drama is likely to take a turn for the darker. This Is England was a provocative title for the film, suggesting that national identity was tied up with lost innocence and bigotry. In the follow-up, the same gang again looks as though it will be torn apart, but this time by infidelity rather than racist hatred. If this suggests a gloomy take on the national psyche, there is much more going on here: Meadows captures a certain camaraderie, coarseness, irony and warmth that are distinctly English, and make for distinctly good television.
By Ceri Radford
